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[FM17] The Long and Winding Road – Keymer and Hassocks/DCK Maidenbower


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The Long Road – Keymer and Hassocks (FM17)

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Using Dan BHTFC’s English Level 22 mod.

 

 

Taking a club from the Conference North/South to the Champions league is an FM rite of passage. It’s a test of patience, hard work and your willingness to put up with managing frankly terrible players. I myself have an everlasting love of Dartford, having managed it for the first time with them on FM11. For those who have truly taken leave of their senses, though, the true challenge is to go even lower. Thus I present the craziest Challenge I’ve ever taken on in all my FM days – Keymer and Hassocks.

 

K&H are a pub team about 7 miles North of Brighton, in the beautiful setting of the South Downs. When I say pub team, I mean pub team. Their logo shows a man drinking beer, showing the kind of character that modern football logos lack, designed as they are by corporate design bigwigs.

They play at Adastra Park, a lovely Parish green that according to the internet boasts a Garden of Remembrance, a Community Pavilion, football pitches, a cricket pitch, a bowling green, tennis courts, a skate park, children’s play areas, and adult fitness equipment. The description ‘football pitches’ is a bit misleading though as satellite images reveal one solitary football pitch.

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They start in the Mid Sussex Football league Division 9, from which by my calculations it will take 21 promotions to reach the promised land of the Premier League.

Upon arrival, my team looked vaguely decent, entirely made up of young auto-generated regens. This was quickly disproved when I signed the mighty Scott Walker, who immediately made my best players look frankly awful by comparison.  I therefore decided to release the entire starting squad and begin again. Believe me, it’s not easy to find decent players willing to sign amateur contracts for a club with a presumably single digit reputation. Still, just about anyone was better than what I started with.

Looking up the divisions, I checked out clubs in the higher divisions. To my surprise, I was able to sign players listed as the ‘key player’ from clubs ten divisions higher, in the Mid Sussex Premier League! These players were just as bad as the players I started with though, leading me to two conclusions:

 

1- The starting reputation of all the clubs across all 10 divisions of the Mid Sussex leagues is the same or very similar

2- The CA of all the players in all the clubs is also very similar.

 

As such a squad capable of crushing the bottom division should be just as capable of the next 9 promotions, with replacements only needed for ageing players or those poached by ‘higher division clubs’ such as those in the heady heights the Southern Combination Leagues and above.

 

 

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So I set about constructing my squad. Key signings include:

 

James Needle in goal, who is young enough that he should be my starting keeper for the next 10+ seasons assuming he isn’t poached.

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Rio ‘Ferdy’ Bryan-Edwards at Centre Back. Just look at those mental stats! To be honest i’m stunned he was willing to sign for us, and I sadly expect him to be poached by a bigger club before long. Definitely a captain for as long as we’ve got him.

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Scott Walker: At his age I expect him to decline relatively fast, and may only be in the team for 1 or 2 seasons. That free-kick taking stat should prove very useful though – I’m expecting him to rack up the goals.

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Josh Street: Just look at that Acceleration and finishing! 14 for both! At this level I’m expecting him to rack up the goals for as long as we can keep him.

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Danny Dyer: Who do ya think ya are calling me sh*t, ya slag!

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Objectives:

 

1. Achieve promotion to the Southern Combination Football League Division 2

This will require 11 promotions (one more than will be required to get from this stage to the Premier League!) but the promotions will hopefully be achieved in relatively quick succession. Ideally will take 11 seasons but up to 13 seasons would be acceptable.

Achieved (kind of)

 

2. Achieve promotion to the Football League

This will require 5 promotions. In that time we will go from being an amateur club to a semi-pro club, and then to a pro club. From seeing the few other careers that have gone down this low(shoutout to Theodlard's FM17 K&H career),

it looks as if the Southern Combination Prem could be a real sticking point, with 20 teams, only one promoted and massive financial disparities that we’ll have to struggle against.

Achieved

 

3. Achieve promotion to the Premier League

Once we’re in the Football League we’ll be on more familiar territory. It still won’t be easy as without a takeover we’ll be by far the poorest club in the FL but at least we’ll be somewhere i’m a bit more familiar with.

Achieved

 

4. Win the Premier League and Champions League

The pinnacle of any lower league management tale, right? Wrong.

 

5. Win the Premier League and Champions League double with only youth team graduates in the squad

Icarus who?

 

Almost certainly will never achieve number 5; hell I’d be happy with just reaching the Football League. However it goes, I’m sure I’ll have a blast anyway.

Will update once per season for the  Mid Sussex Leagues, may go to every half season once we hit semi pro or pro status.

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Season One: As successful as expected.

Decent set results in the friendlies, the only worry being the 3-0 loss to Heath Rangers, who are in our league this season.

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Our League form once we got started was much better than I had anticipated though, in a 20 game season winning the first 11 is very much the form of champions. We eventually lost our winning streak on game 12 with a 0-0 against Fairwarp II, and lost our unbeaten run with a 2-1 loss to Heath (seems I was right to be worried about them after pre-season).

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That was the only game we lost all season though, winning the league at a canter.

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Our cup runs were if anything even more successful, completing a clean sweep of all three cup competitions.

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I doubt we'll have as much luck in the cups next season, but I'm expecting another league win regardless.

Onwards and upwards!

 

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Season Two: Two easy?

I've been worried about players from the First 11 being poached by bigger clubs and it happened in pre-season as Whitehawk snapped up our key creative midfielder Anthony Guppy.

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However, I was able to sign Robert Stenning from Gosport who proved an adequate replacement. I mean, look at that flair stat!

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Other than Guppy I have been fending off the vultures all season but have so far been successful in protecting my prize assets. I have been forced to offer key players a new contract every other week at least, but they always seem to choose to re-sign with me on £0 p/w rather than go somewhere they can actually earn money to play. It's tedious work but worth it to keep this squad together, I want to see the same group of players rise through to the top of the Mid Sussex Leagues if possible.

 

Pre-season was a hectic schedule as I tried to schedule as many high-earning friendlies as possible at the start, before finishing off with some easy friendlies to get boost the morale.

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Pre-season kicked off with a remarkable 3-2 win over Conference Premier side Accrington, and also included a similarly impressive narrow 2-3 loss to Milton Keynes and some excellent results against Conference N/S sides. Promising signs, although likely most or all of this current squad will have retired if/when we reach the Conference.

In the League we were expected to finish as champions, which we had no trouble doing. We actually went one better than last season and finished unbeaten! It was only a 16-game season in the league though so it's not on a par with an unbeaten season in professional football. The next league target will be to win 100% of league games.

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In the cups we were competing in four domestic cups this season and were expected to win all four. I was expecting us to fall short in at least one of them but we powered through and completed a second clean sweep of trophies this season.

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So an unbeaten season in all comps. To be honest we're so far ahead of every other team we've faced this year that it's started to get a bit boring winning everything in sight. I can't wait till we get out of the Mid Sussex leagues and into the Southern Combination leagues so this save can offer a challenge. Never thought that winning could be so dull!

One challenge we do have will be replacing Scott Walker. Our star LB retired at the end of the season, frustrating as he was still better than any other LB in the league but I guess at 38 he felt he had better things to do with his time than to play football for free. A couple of other fringe players also retired; David Collis, who seems to be a better coach than a player anyway,

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and our favourite slag Danny Dyer, who retired to focus on becoming a halfway decent actor and in his spare time will also do a bit of scouting for us.

Undoubtedly our best player last season was Josh Street, who scored 31 in 32, also bagging 8 assists. Fingers crossed my scouts can find me a new LB to replace Walker, although I could field David Blunkett at LB next season and I'm sure we'd still win the league.

Onwards and Upwards!

 

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Season Three: Not quite so invincible

Pre-season:

Last season I mentioned that the big challenge this season was to replace Scott Walker at LB. We signed Liam Coates to replace him in the summer, actually a nice upgrade and young enough to stay with us for the rest of the Mid Sussex leagues I thought. Unfortunately, I only had him for 6 months though as he was poached by Bury Town in the Isthmian Premier in January!

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My scouts were unable to find me another decent LB so I was forced to shift starting CB Kyriakos Antoniou to LB and play our 3rd choice CB alongside Ferdy for the rest of the season.

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Preseason kicked off with the regular pattern of high quality teams at the start to earn some cash and then weaker teams to build up a run of form going into the new season.

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Losses to Bradford and Plymouth by only one goal were creditable (I have my Assman who takes charge of friendlies to thank for that) with the rest being a decent run of mostly wins which should stand us in good stead for the season.

League:

We started the season with an unbeaten run of 41 games in all comps already in the bag, hoping to go another season unbeaten. Unfortunately we did lose in the league, but we still were able to win the league comfortably.  The highlight was undoubtedly the final game of the season, a resounding 8-0 win with Josh Street scoring 4 to take his league average to 2 goals/game.

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Cups:

The cups however were a disappointment. With three to play for, we only won one, going out of the Mid Sussex Junior Cup in an immensely frustrating 1-0 loss to Fairwarp II which was also the match that signalled the end of our unbeaten run after an impressive 55 games. We also lost the Malins Challenge Cup final 1-0, but we followed that up by winning the Parsons Challenge Cup in the next game. 

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Star of the Season:

Once again the star this year was Josh Street. He just seems to get better and better, with 43 goals in 30 games this season including 32 in 18 in the League. More of the same would be nice next season!

Other Points of note:

Last season we lost Anthony Guppy to Whitehawk, and this season they went and nicked our star keeper James Needle! That one hurt far more than Guppy, especially as I struggled to replace him.

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I found a halfway decent keeper in Alex Irwin, but he's not of quite the same standard. After poaching two of my first teamers, Whitehawk are now sworn enemies of Keymer and Hassocks. They're a Conference side so it'll take a while before we reach their level but once we're there I swear on the life of the one true god Josh Street that we will destroy them. Anyway, here's Alex Irwin.

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I've somehow managed to continue to keep other key players though, including Street and our captain Rio 'Ferdy' Bryan-Edwards.

 

Looking ahead:

Next season we'll need a new LB (again) and if my scouts find me a better GK then all the better. Form-wise we'll obviously target another league win and promotion, and doing better in the cups would be a boon.

Onwards and upwards!

 

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Season Four - Almost Perfect

Pre-season

Standard pre-season format. We kicked the season off with a superb draw against Milton Keynes. The following matches against the bigger teams were more what you'd expect from an amateur side,  losses but no real thrashings. Good results in the second portion of pre-season against the smaller sides should get the morale high for the new season.

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League

Another unbeaten season, putting the terrible memories of last season's solitary league defeat to bed. The one draw in the middle of the season was a bitter pill to swallow though; a 90th-minute equaliser made all the more galling when we won every subsequent match. So close to a perfect season, but we've still got a few more years left dominating the Mid Sussex leagues in which to achieve it. Another point to note is that Crawley United have been following us up the leagues. This is the third season in a row that they've finished second behind us and been promoted with us; it's nice to have friends come along for the ride.

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Cups

Four cups to compete for this season, and all four won comfortably. It seems the squad were determined to put last year's cup showings behind them, and they did it with style. However the 100% run in the cups just makes that one solitary league draw all the more painful.

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Top Scorer

Last season's top scorer Josh Street found himself heavily rotated this season with second-choice poacher Chris Benjamin, allowing their ever-present Target Man sidekick Onome Sodje to scoop this year's top goalscorer, with 28 in 37 in all comps (plus 17 assists!)

 

Major Transfers

Thankfully there were no key players lost this season, although we did bring a few in. Our new no.1 is Cui Xiaofeng, a Chinese goalkeeper released from Aston Villa's academy.

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We have solved our left-back issue by bringing in Ben Harrison from Banbury.

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And we brought in Adrian Pearce-Cullen, a regen left winger who after a year with us is frankly just outrageously talented - the lad should be playing Conference football at a minimum, judging by those stats.

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He's now refusing to sign a new deal with us, so I expect him to be gone before long, perhaps even by the time the next season starts.  Talking of which...

 

Next Season

We could do with signing another CM as our options are a bit thin in that department. Other than that we'll only sign players to replace any that are poached. Of course it would be nice to have a perfect season but the main goal is to win the league again; the sooner we get out of these dross Mid Sussex leagues the better.

 

Onwards and Upwards!

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Season Five - More Of The Same

 

Pre-season

An unbelievable win to kick things off against Blackburn, plus the usual set of wins against fellow amateur clubs.

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League

We came into the league off the back of an unbeaten season, dreaming of finally having the perfect season of not losing or even drawing a single game. Unfortunately it wasn't to be, as we drew two games this season, but we did manage a second unbeaten season in a row, so no real complaints.

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Cups

A five cup season this year, and another clean sweep. 

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Our unbeaten run in all comps now stretches to 79 games, so barring a shock loss we should reach 100 games unbeaten next season.

 

Top Scorer

Once again Josh Street led the way, with 36 goals and 11 assists from 32 apps.

 

Transfers

As expected we lost Adrian Pearce-Cullen over the summer. He was poached by League Two side Newport, but it was a step too far for him and he ended up being loaned out to Conference N/S.  His replacement was Shaun Hallwood, who is a significant downgrade but hopefully should be easier to hold on to as a result. 

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There were no other significant transfers, just the odd squad player signed or released/poached.

 

Next Season

Winning every game still seems achievable, but the main aim is to reach 100 games unbeaten and another promotion. We're approaching the halfway mark for the Mid Sussex leagues, entering the sixth tier having started in the 11th.

Any other screenshots people wanna see (best elevens, tactics, specific players) just ask.

 

Onwards and Upwards!

 

 

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Season Six - Goliath

Pre-Season

The ritual of an absurd win against professional opposition to kick things off continued, with a win over Bristol City. Decent warm up overall, although the loss to Niton was slightly disappointing.

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League

Another year, another unbeaten league campaign. We now haven't lost in the league for 3 and a bit seasons, a total of 59 games. 2 draws though means the perfect league season remains as elusive as ever.

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Cups

4 cups up for grabs this season, and only two won. The match against the goliaths of Ewhurst ended our unbeaten run in all comps at an agonising 91 games, although to be fair they are the first non-amateur team we've faced in a competitive fixture. Last minute loss against Fairfield was also disappointing, no excuses there as they're an amateur side.

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Top Scorer

Once again our top scorer this season was Josh Street, with another excellent season.

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Credit also due to new signing Dale Waters, who partnered Street for most of the season and also posted excellent stats.

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Major Transfers

Out:

My nightmares came true at the start of the 2021/22 season as we lost our talismanic centre-back Kyriakos Antoniou to Nuneaton. Even more galling was watching him fail to get into the first team, get loaned out, and released after one season (of course he won't re-sign with us any more).

 

We also lost our other starting centre-back Rio 'Ferdy' Bryan-Edwards to some dross team, then managed to re-sign him a day later. No harm, no foul, right?

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Starting left-back Ben Harrison departed, but I was fairly confident about our younger backup so I haven't bothered to replace him yet.

 

In:

As well as the already mentioned Dale Waters, we pulled off a coup by bagging Matty Whichelow, who had spent the last season as first choice RM at Dartford. 

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After watching Cui Xiaofeng fail to truly grow in his two seasons as first choice, understandable for an amateur, we brought in Andrew Calloway at GK.

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We also brought in Glenn Roney, fresh from his release at Fulham.

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All screenshots taken after one year of development at K&H.

Although progress is slow, with every league/cup win we seem to be able to attract slightly better players, which bodes well for our hopes of surviving once we start competing in the league with semi-pro clubs.

 

 

Next Season

We'll face further semi-pro opposition in the Mid Sussex Senior Cup going forwards, making it a good barometer for our progress. A win against one would be nice, but I'm not expecting us to win that cup next year. League wise more of the same would be nice, another unbeaten season maybe but the only real goal is promotion, as ever.

Onwards and Upwards!

 

 

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Season Seven - Mixed Bag

Pre-season

Turns out that those pre-season friendlies against professional opposition weren't making me money but rather costing me money; we weren't bringing in enough gate receipts to cover the fees, so I've abandoned that for now in favour of smaller sides that don't charge appearance fees. Decent pre-season should leave us in good form for the year ahead.

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League

Going into the season we had lost our unbeaten run in all comps last year but we had an ongoing 59 game unbeaten run in the league. Unfortunately our run was ended at 68 games by Copthorne III, but we achieved our primary aim of another promotion. 2 losses in a league season is an unwanted club record we set this year but I'm once we reach the semi-pro leagues that number will be blown away.

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Cups

2/4 cups won this season, and we were eliminated by fellow amateurs both times. Will hope for better cup success next season but not too upset as the main aim is always promotion.

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Top Performers

Top scorer this year was Dale Waters, an excellent season from him.

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Decent Season for Josh Street as well, although he may find next season tougher competing with David Ashley.

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Major Transfers

Our strange tit-for-tat with Horsham got out of hand this year, as they signed four players from us only for them to return only a few days later. Irritating but better than them signing for semi-pro clubs and being lost for good I guess. David Ashley is a super quick (15 acc!) forward who will compete with Josh Street to partner Dale Waters. Other signings are squad players/prospects, and no players left for good against my will, so a decent season for transfers all considered.

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Next Season

Same as previous seasons; promotion is the primary goal. It may be made more difficult with the loss of our star CM Robert Stenning with a cruciate injury at the end of the season, so he'll miss all of next season, but we'll try to bring someone in to fill the gap.

Onwards and Upwards!

 

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On 03/02/2019 at 05:31, sourgrapes11 said:

1- The starting reputation of all the clubs across all 10 divisions of the Mid Sussex leagues is the same or very similar

2- The CA of all the players in all the clubs is also very similar.

 

As such a squad capable of crushing the bottom division should be just as capable of the next 9 promotions, with replacements only needed for ageing players or those poached by ‘higher division clubs’ such as those in the heady heights the Southern Combination Leagues and above. 

Has it only been 2 years since we were doing the 22-level K&H challenge? As you noted in your first post, it is ridiculously easy. One guy (the one who made your logo), posting in Dan's thread kept going to the Premier League with, I think, only one time he didn't achieve instant promotion. I gave up because winning every game without bothering with tactics became too boring, so with Fairwarp last year I focussed on an Academy Challenge whereby I had to do what I could with the chumps I began with, and if any decent ones left the club I'd have to make do until the academy intake. Even then, it was too easy so next time I used the editor to create starting players all aged 15 with CA1.  Currently, by starting in level 12 I am up against teams that have better players and it feels like more of a challenge. No need to wish you 'good luck' with your campaign - you can't not keep winning promotion although you'll need to put in some thought for steps 4 & 5.

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13 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

Has it only been 2 years since we were doing the 22-level K&H challenge? As you noted in your first post, it is ridiculously easy. One guy (the one who made your logo), posting in Dan's thread kept going to the Premier League with, I think, only one time he didn't achieve instant promotion. I gave up because winning every game without bothering with tactics became too boring, so with Fairwarp last year I focussed on an Academy Challenge whereby I had to do what I could with the chumps I began with, and if any decent ones left the club I'd have to make do until the academy intake. Even then, it was too easy so next time I used the editor to create starting players all aged 15 with CA1.  Currently, by starting in level 12 I am up against teams that have better players and it feels like more of a challenge. No need to wish you 'good luck' with your campaign - you can't not keep winning promotion although you'll need to put in some thought for steps 4 & 5.

1

Yeah I have to admit it's not the most challenging career I've taken on so far.

Not sure what you mean by the logo - its the same logo on the Keymer and Hassocks website.

Haven't seen the career you're referencing - will try to find it. The one L22 save I found Theodlard's which I linked in the second post;  he started having difficulties once he got out of the Mid Sussex leagues and reached the Southern Combination leagues as he struggled to compete against semi-pro clubs I think which has been borne out by us losing the only competitive fixture so far against semi-pro opposition so I'm hoping it will get more interesting once we get out of the mid sussex leagues.

Interesting idea to do a Level 22 academy challenge but I doubt once I'm out of these leagues i'd be willing to drop down so far again - I think Conference N/S is much more fun tbh. 

Re steps 4 and 5 I think step 5 in particular is pretty much a pipe dream but it'd be nice to have something still to strive for if we do reach the Prem.

Good luck with your L12 save!

 

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4 minutes ago, sourgrapes11 said:

Not sure what you mean by the logo - its the same logo on the Keymer and Hassocks website.

Haven't seen the career you're referencing - will try to find it.

That's interesting. The poster's name is 'jwchristie'. You're right, it is the official club's logo - jw commandeered it for his avatar. I've found the thread - he got straight promotions from L22 or 21 last year to League One. I think he took 2 seasons to win that, then came 2nd in the Championship. In the Premier league he initially struggled and just avoided relegation but the next season finished 6th and got into Europe. The summary is here  https://community.sigames.com/topic/410826-fm18-e22-england-to-level-22/page/32/

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 09/03/2019 at 21:56, phnompenhandy said:

That's interesting. The poster's name is 'jwchristie'. You're right, it is the official club's logo - jw commandeered it for his avatar. I've found the thread - he got straight promotions from L22 or 21 last year to League One. I think he took 2 seasons to win that, then came 2nd in the Championship. In the Premier league he initially struggled and just avoided relegation but the next season finished 6th and got into Europe. The summary is here  https://community.sigames.com/topic/410826-fm18-e22-england-to-level-22/page/32/

Thanks for sharing, an interesting read.

Will have to wait and see if it continues to be easy once we reach semi-pro leagues - I hope not as it'd be nice to be challenged a bit more but I guess I won't know until I get there. 

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Season 8 - Literally Messi

Pre-season

Ass Man did the usual excellent job of managing the team for pre-season matches, only loss was to Arsenal u23 who I'd expect to lose to.

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League

No unbeaten season this year, but W16 D1 L1 is certainly good enough for another league win. Coming towards the end of the Mid Sussex Leagues, just League 1, Championship and Prem to go.

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Cups

The cups are starting to feature more and more semi-pro clubs so clean sweeps are now a thing of the past, but we did win the Mid Sussex senior cup for the first time. 🎉

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Top Performers

An outstanding season from Dale Waters, averaging more than a goal AND an assist per game.

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But even that was overshadowed by the single best season by any player I've ever seen in all my years playing FM. This guy is literally Messi. He'll go in the summer for sure but I feel lucky to have had him even for a season and a half.

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Our usual top goalscorer Josh Street spent the whole season looking glum on the bench watching David Ashley tear it up, but after that season I'm expecting a Conference team to swoop in and sign him up so he'll probably be back in the side next season.

Major Transfers

Horsham continue to sign our players. For some reason, they don't seem to be at all deterred by the fact that we sign them back after 24-48 hours. Can only assume they find it amusing to take the ****. With regard to outgoings we couldn't sign back, Robert Stenning departed after 6 1/2 seasons with us, as did his CM partner Glenn Roney so we needed to bring in an all new midfield. We also lost our GK Andrew Calloway and RB Matthew Williams, who we replaced with Patrick Jones and Warren Sutton respectively. 

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Other point of note

My PC restarted overnight so I lost the final couple of months of last season, so Robert Stenning's previous cruciate injury was wiped from history. Didn't help much as we lost him halfway through this season anyway.

 

Next Season

Think we need another CM ideally, but other than that it'll just be players in to replace those we lose. Would be nice to win the Edgar German challenge cup and/or Sussex Intermediate cup but of course the main aim is another promotion. The bright lights of the Southern Combination football league are fast approaching!

 

Onwards and Upwards!

 

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2143795600_Screenshot2019-04-0101_33.18(2).thumb.png.a7dbf18a64de6b7a65034a9bc1547cb3.png

Holy sh*t...

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FFS

I'm sure many of you have seen this before but I hadn't, gave me a heart attack when it popped up. Odd that I've been playing FM for years and not seen this before - was it a new addition to FM17?

 

 

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Season 9 - Life After Messi

Preseason

Par for course, good draw against Arsenal u23.

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League

Another unbeaten season sees us up to the Mid Sussex Championship. Nice to get another unbeaten League season, but I won't exactly be singing about it from the rooftops.

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Cups

For a club like Celtic, league form is almost immaterial; the manager is only judged on how they get on in Europe. The same is true of Keymer and Hassocks in a way; the only true test for our squad are the cups we take part in. We won't win every cup every season, but I want us to win every cup at least once. So far our record stands at:

Brian Hall Challenge Cup: Played 2 Won 2

Mid Sussex Junior Cup: P5 W4

Tester Challenge Cup: P2 W2

Parsons Challenge Cup: P3 W3

Malins Challenge Cup: P3 W2

Stratford Challenge Cup: P3 W2

Stubbins Challenge Cup: P3 W3

Mid Sussex Senior Cup: P4 W1 *

Edgar German Challenge Cup: P3 W1

Sussex Intermediate Cup: P2 W0 *

Mowatt Challenge Cup: P2 W2 *

Montgomery Challenge Cup: P1 W1 *

*More opportunities to win in the future

Of all the cups we've competed in so far, we have only failed to win the Sussex Intermediate Cup. Fingers crossed we can win it next season, but we will have several more chances regardless.

Decent season in the cups overall, won the Montgomery Challenge Cup and the Edgar German Challenge Cup for the first time.  

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Top Performers

After David Ashley's ludicrous performances last season I knew that we wouldn't be able to hold on to him, and so it proved as Maidstone snapped him up during pre-season. The goalscoring mantle therefore returned to Josh Street, who stepped up to the plate with a superb season. 51 goals and 20 assists is 38 games is undoubtedly his best return to date. Life after our Messi is looking pretty sweet indeed.

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Dale Waters had another excellent season up top as well, with 32 games played, 32 goals and 24 assists.

Although his average rating isn't nearly as high as our strikers, Jon Weaver is probably the best player we've ever had at the club. Having signed him at 17 years old, he was the first player who Rio Bryan-Edwards was able to imprint his personality on after several failed attempts. With a driven personality and regular games from 17 onwards, he has simply exploded and based on his stats now I rekon he could even do a job as a League 2 squad player.  

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Major Transfers

Handing back the goalscoring responsibility to Josh Street meant no replacement for David Ashley, but we did lose our GK Patrick Jones in the summer, replacing him with Luke Brill. Brill failed to improve with a season between the sticks though so we'll be on the lookout for another GK in the summer.

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Long-serving target man Onome Sodje retired, having joined us right at the start of the career, meaning that the only two players left from the start are our leading goalscorer Josh Street and club captain Rio 'Ferdy' Bryan-Edwards.

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Next Season

We will be on the lookout primarily for a new GK and CM. The one major cup we have yet to win is the Sussex Intermediate Cup, so that will be our goal next season, as well as another promotion of course.

Onwards and Upwards!

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Season 10 - You've Got a Friend

 

Pre-season

Standard preseason, another decent result against Arsenal u23.

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League

This season Keymer & Hassocks shocked everyone by... winning the league comfortably again. However for the first time I believe we failed to set a record number of points for the division. Is our era of dominance coming to an end?

 

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Cups

Some fantastic cup performances this year. Of particular importance were two wins against semi-pro Partridge Green, in the Sussex Intermediate Cup and the Mid Sussex Senior Cup. 3/4 cups won is a superb return, the one frustration being that we once again failed to win the Sussex Intermediate Cup. WE did make progress in the competition though, making it all the way to the semi-finals so I have faith that we'll win it soon.

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Top Performers

As expected, Josh Street continued to excel.

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Honourable mention as always goes to Dale Waters, with  35 games, 27 goals and 23 assists.

 

Major Transfers

At the start of the season I felt I wanted to revamp our GK and CM. Despite signing a large number of options for these positions nobody really made the position their own, until we had secured the Champioship. This must have boosted our rep a fair bit, because we were suddenly able to sign players to jump straight into first team spots. We wasted no time, signing Jamie Starkey and Jason Mitchell for CM and mark Vernon for GK, all from Mid Sussex prem leaders Barcombe. Alfie Barrett is also a key signing at LB/LM and we managed to resign our old RB Matthew Williams to provide competition at RB/RM. Young LB/LM prospect James Taylor is hopefully half as talented as his singer-singwriter namesake, and James Green and George Artemi are also key signings; they are not even close to good enough for the first team but the have outstanding personalities so I will use them as tutor slaves. I have already managed to impart an excellent personality on CB Neville Wheeler, James Taylor and last seasons CB/LB prospect signing Scot Hopkinson so the future of our defence looks assured as long as I can hold on to them until we go semi-pro.

Notable departures meanwhile were the expected loss of Jon Weaver, who went to Bury in League 2 and immediately slotted into their backline, fellow CB Adie Higginson and GK Josh Brill, who we were forced to cope without for two months before we brought in Mark Vernon.

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Next Season

Aims are much the same as last season; promotion and to win the Sussex Intermediate Cup for the first time. Last year will hopefully be our last season in the Mid Sussex Leagues and our last season as an amateur side; the sides in the Southern Combination Leagues are all semi-pro so hopefully with promtion we will also be granted semi-pro status. Got another league to win first though!

 

Onwards and Upwards!

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Mid Season 11 Update

For the first time in this career things are tight at the top of the table! 14 league games played, 14 to go and we're tied on points at the top. Still in the two cup competitions we're competing in this season.

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Earned a bunch of cash in return for our 2-8 hiding from Arsenal, otherwise an excellent preseason.

The loss to DCK was disappointing (they are called Dynamo Chicken Kiev! What a name. Think I might give managing them a go for FM20) but we got revenge by knocking them out of the Mid Sussex Senior Cup.

We lost our star player, CM/AM Jamie Starkey to AFC Cubo (we only had him for 7 months, most of that being the off-season!) but I saw it coming so brought in a couple of replacements, Aaron Hart and Steve Barnett who I had been considering signing even before we lost Starkey. Barnett has some otherwise solid mental stats let down by weak determination and a low self belief personality but you hardly expect the full package at this level.

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There's only one promtion spot in this league so we really need to win the league, for my own mental health if nothing else. DCK and Balcombe look like they'll push us hard though.

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Interested to gather your thoughts on something... I tried this on FM16, started at level 22. Loved it so so much until I got to around 12 seasons in and it got buggy. The board expectations were to win the FA Cup... I assumed it was because we had won promotions 12 years running we were mistakenly seen by the game as some big team... has this happened to anyone else? 

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On 10/04/2019 at 16:49, BuryBlade said:

Interested to gather your thoughts on something... I tried this on FM16, started at level 22. Loved it so so much until I got to around 12 seasons in and it got buggy. The board expectations were to win the FA Cup... I assumed it was because we had won promotions 12 years running we were mistakenly seen by the game as some big team... has this happened to anyone else? 

Interesting, I'll have to watch out for that. I haven't noticed any buggyness so far, just general slowness from how many leagues that you need to have running at the same time. Are you sure it was the FA Cup, not the FA Vase or another similar cup? I welcome anyone else who's played levels 6-12 to input here but I don't think level 10 is even eligible for the FA Cup qualifying rounds.

FWIW I still can't sign players from our main league rivals this year, Chicken Kiev, so our in-game rep must still be very low despite the successive promotions.

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4 hours ago, sourgrapes11 said:

Interesting, I'll have to watch out for that. I haven't noticed any buggyness so far, just general slowness from how many leagues that you need to have running at the same time. Are you sure it was the FA Cup, not the FA Vase or another similar cup? I welcome anyone else who's played levels 6-12 to input here but I don't think level 10 is even eligible for the FA Cup qualifying rounds.

FWIW I still can't sign players from our main league rivals this year, Chicken Kiev, so our in-game rep must still be very low despite the successive promotions.

Thanks for the reply. Definitely FA Cup. We got through to the 3rd round and lost to Fulham 2-1. Kind of ruined my save. Don’t want to start another of the problem exists. But if you’ve not found it, that’s a good sign.

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Dynamo Chicken Kiev is the best - or at least it was until I ran them through that fangled google-ator and found another bunch of Kiev's playing against One flew over Lukaku's nest & Murder on Zidane floor! Seems that DCK Maidenbower are not the only Kiev's out there!

Damn, now I'm hungry - must be 25 years since I had a chicken kiev too, surprised they still make them...! :(

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Season 11 climax

3 games to go in the League, and we are ahead of DCK by 3 points, but they have a game in hand and a superior goal difference. Was shaping up to be an incredibly tight end to the season, and then...

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For some reason, another promotion spot opened up. My guess is that a team from one of the other leagues that feeds into the Southern Combination FL just secured promotion, but is ineligible to be promoted for some reason. 

Another odd thing though is that DCK have secured promotion, but we haven't yet. Anybody got any knowledge as to why that might be?

As for the rest of the season, the pressure of winning top spot has been lifted but we've won the league in every Mid Sussex season so far so it'd be nice to complete the MId Sussex sweep if we can.

 

 

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Season 11 Finale - A Complete Refresh (inc. the return of Literally Messi) & Southern Combination Here We Come!

Ended up being a disappointing cup season, the first season we've not won a cup I think. We did knock out our main League rivals Chicken Kiev out of the Mid Sussex Senior Cup 3rd round but that's as far as we got, as we were knocked out of both cups one after the other, a gutting 1-2 punch.

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Our season had been going awry for a few weeks by this point, culminating in our cup knockouts, and by that point we were a little distance behind DCK. The cup defeats seemed to wake us up though as we didn't lose another match all season and were able to overtake DCK to win the title.

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Due to large gaps between fixtures towards the end of the season, we had to organise a number of friendlies to keep fitness levels up but this only seemed to help continue our winning momentum.

Transfers

Our squad was turned on its head when one of our scouts recommended a player from Isle of Wight side Niton. I went into their squad and found an absolute treasure trove of amateur talent surpassing even pornhub. We ended up signing nine of their players including former Sunderland midfielder Didier Ndong, all of whom were better than anyone at the club before. This boost also allowed us to sign a couple of other players who would previously have refused to consider signing for us because our squad quality wasn't high enough, former Liverpool prospect Rhian Brewster and the return of club legend Literally Messi, aka David Ashley. A sign of how far our squad has grown in two years is that he has signed on as Brewster's backup, having played fairly regularly last season for Maidstone in the Conference South.

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Top Performers

Club top scorer Josh Street had a good season by anybody's standards, with roughly a goal per game. However I think he has found his level in the amateur leagues, and with the return of Ashley and new boy Brewster the writing is clearly on the wall for him at 30 y/o. It is a similar story for his partner in crime Dale Waters; an excellent season but new signings from Niton, Shomari Barnwell and in particular Hans Gustafson, are rated as miles better so sadly I think the strikers who fired us into the Southern Combination leagues will not play a part in keeping us there. 

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Next Season

All of these signings should serve us well for next season; I had previously been aiming mainly for consolidation next season but now I think we have a chance of immediate promotion if we can keep our newly signed players at the club. Last season's Mid Sussex Prem champions Barcombe finished this season as Southern Combination D2 champions, which certainly bodes well. Will be interesting to see if we turn semi-pro during the off-season as expected, and what effect that will have on the contracts we can offer our players.

 

Onwards and Upwards!

 

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9 hours ago, optimusprimal82 said:

Dynamo Chicken Kiev is the best - or at least it was until I ran them through that fangled google-ator and found another bunch of Kiev's playing against One flew over Lukaku's nest & Murder on Zidane floor! Seems that DCK Maidenbower are not the only Kiev's out there!

Damn, now I'm hungry - must be 25 years since I had a chicken kiev too, surprised they still make them...! :(

Haha I love that people are naming football teams like pub quiz team names...

I'd defo give it a go managing Murder on the Zidane floor up to the Champions League if they were playable!

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Outrage

Despite winning the League last season, we have been denied promotion, with 2nd place side and now firmly mortal enemies Dynamo Chicken Kiev Maidenbower being promoted instead. Why we haven't been promoted I have no idea; any thoughts would be very helpful.

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We'll just have to go and win the bloody league again; if we are denied promotion for a second time I'll have to give up on the career because being forever stuck on the highest rung of amateur football is surely the definition of purgatory.

 

 

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Takeover

Our long-serving chairman Craig Mott has made way for a consortium after 10 years.

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The 300k they've gifted us doubles our bank balance, but until we need a stadium expansion it's fairly moot anyway.

Would still welcome any suggestions as to why we didn't get promoted last season?

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Mid Sussex Prem attempt 2: 10 games to go

With 10 games to go we are locked in a dead heat with Balcombe, ahead only on goal difference. Like last season though, the top two spots are marked green for promotion, despite the league rules clearly stating that only top spot wins promotion.

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1027770733_Screenshot2019-04-1421_55.48(2).thumb.png.5e3d1f1080ee4759e1e4bcd4650a2873.png

 

I might actually save at this point and deliberately throw the league to see if the second green spot vanishes when we are no longer top. If the spot vanishes then it definitely suggests that the game has decided that we are for some reason unworthy of playing semi-pro football.

I'll update with the results of my experiment.

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Update

Balcombe have now played one game more than us and are top of the league; the second green promotion spot has vanished now that we are not top.

1055801571_Screenshot2019-04-1422_26.56(2).thumb.png.7eb14813000bf9e167b6963405a412ee.png

I will reload and continue to the end of the season but all the evidence points to the fact that if we win the league then promotion will simply be awarded to the second placed team again.

After months of effort and 11 league titles frustrating doesn't even come close.

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Confirmation

With three games to go, Balcombe's grip on second place at a minimum is now unassailable, and their promotion is confirmed, as is the fact that no matter how many times I win the Mid Sussex Prem we will not be granted promotion.

1150045480_Screenshot2019-04-1516_48.36(2).thumb.png.2fadef56377551a018eba5c039b981d4.png

Being perfectly honest I have to hold my hands up and say that I am 100% responsible for this.

On 10/04/2019 at 16:49, BuryBlade said:

Interested to gather your thoughts on something... I tried this on FM16, started at level 22. Loved it so so much until I got to around 12 seasons in and it got buggy. The board expectations were to win the FA Cup... I assumed it was because we had won promotions 12 years running we were mistakenly seen by the game as some big team... has this happened to anyone else? 

 

 

On 12/04/2019 at 04:45, sourgrapes11 said:

Interesting, I'll have to watch out for that. I haven't noticed any buggyness so far, just general slowness from how many leagues that you need to have running at the same time. Are you sure it was the FA Cup, not the FA Vase or another similar cup? I welcome anyone else who's played levels 6-12 to input here but I don't think level 10 is even eligible for the FA Cup qualifying rounds.

FWIW I still can't sign players from our main league rivals this year, Chicken Kiev, so our in-game rep must still be very low despite the successive promotions.

1
1

Clearly my overconfident declaration of no bugs was my downfall. I would like to hear what other people think I should do now - Do I simply abandon the save, Jump ship to another side and hope the promotion bug doesn't reoccur, or attempt to resolve the issue with in game editors, potentially causing even more bugs?

Edited by sourgrapes11
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3 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

Pop into Dan's thread and ask if anyone there can help.

Not a bad idea. Was just thinking though that the thread for Dan's FM17 L22 mod is likely dead, and I don't want to bump an old thread.

I've posted in the editor's hideaway about the possibility of somehow editing in my promotion but no response yet.

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Season 12 Conclusion - End of the road for Keymer and Hassocks

Once we knew that there was nothing to be gained from winning the league title, we eased off in search of the one trophy that had eluded us thus far - the Sussex Intermediate Cup. In our final season, I'm delighted to say that we won it, meaning that I can leave K&H having won every trophy available.

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For extra sentimentality, I played Rio 'Ferdy' Bryan-Edwards in our final game against AFC Bolnore for only his fourth appearance of the season (he's 35 now!) and was also delighted to see the final goal of my K&H career scored by Josh Street.

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As our all time record app holder I'd have expected Ferdy to rank among our Favoured Personnel at least but I guess defenders rarely get the attention of fans unless they screw up.

I will be keeping save files from this portion of the career so that if a solution to the promotion bug is found then I can resume from this point but for now I'm going to try moving clubs and hope that the promotion bug doesn't follow me.

I will now be commencing Operation Chicken Kiev.

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On 17/04/2019 at 17:00, Dan BHTFC said:

Just read through, no idea why you couldn't gain promotion, I wish I could tell you why!

It's absolutely gutting to lose out on 12 seasons of progression but the bug doesn't look like it's followed to my new club (fingers crossed!) and the new surroundings might also bring a completely new dimension to the save which I will explain in my next post.

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Operation Chicken Kiev

With his time at Keymer and Hassocks drawing to a regrettable close, manager Jamie Tabb continued his career by moving 15 miles north to take over Crawley's Dynamo Chicken Kiev Maidenbower. DCK actually finished behind K&H in the 2026/27 Mid Sussex Premier League but were promoted due to unspecified irregularities. DCK then won the Southern Combination Football League Division Two(SCFLD2), meaning that Tabb takes over in their maiden(bower) season in SCFLD1.

Tabb took over in bizarre circumstances; long-serving manager Reece Miles was fired unexpectedly having just secured the SCFLD2 title, and was replaced by an oddly named fellow called 'Operation Chicken Kiev'. Kiev then himself resigned and announced his retirement from management after less than 24 hours in the role, at which point DCK turned to Tabb.

There are no traces of Crawley's DCK online, so this post can't include an introduction to the club like it did for K&H, but the state of the club after 12 seasons of AI management is far weaker than that of K&H. Less money in the bank, a tiny roster of frankly terrible staff members and an ageing squad. Based on the inability to sign players who would have happily come to K&H, it would seem that despite the club playing two divisions higher the club has a far lower reputation.  Here's a quick look at the staffing levels left behind:

 

1544902399_Screenshot2019-04-1619_27.51(2).thumb.png.3dee495391cbf1b7fccf3b8fd6eb55bc.png

 

Amazing what you can achieve with 12 years of pestering the board and no wages paid to staff.

The squad was strengthened with the signing of numerous K&H players - that is, those who were willing to move. The defenders who managed to acquire Rio 'Ferdy' Bryan-Edwards' Driven personality were all willing to sign though, as was Literally Messi aka David Ashley. Most of the best players already at the club were picked off by higher division clubs though, so the squad certainly will be a work in progress for the next few seasons. 

The board expects a title win, which may not prove easy given the issues at the club upon arrival. The schedule is also likely to be far more congested, with a 34 game league season and four cup competitions.

There is however one massive advantage to the move to DCK, which is DCK II. The reserve side plays in Mid Sussex Division Four, meaning that in theory they could also progress up the leagues. I can sign players for DCK II, and control as much about them as I like, but I won't be taking charge of their matches. Thus this save is now no longer just a lower league management save, it is now also a lower league Director of Football save as well.

Unfortunately, Mid Sussex D4 is no longer loaded, so for the first season DCK II will only be competing in cup competitions. From the 2029/30 season onwards however they will once again be competing in the league and able to (hopefully) start to climb up the pyramid with DCK proper.

If the league is close this season then there will be a mid-season update, but if it turns out to be a walk in the park then the first DCK season update will be at the end of season.

Onwards and upwards!

 

 

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2 hours ago, sourgrapes11 said:

Also any advice on how to change the title of the post to include DCK would be appreciated.

Have you tried editing the first post? I'm sure you can change the title there

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DCK Maidenbower: An Introduction

After a little sleuthing, I have found out a little about DCK. They play at Maidenbower Park, in South East Crawley, just a few hundred metres from the M23.

1887070346_Screenshot2019-04-2118_15.35(2).thumb.png.65aa2c00f417425083d45448a5e48a85.png

Maidenbower Park is a community area with several football pitches. According to FM, Mid Sussex D7 side Crawley Panthers also play here.

841310771_Screenshot2019-04-2118_13.45(2).thumb.png.503d91676cae9c1e6f8b306ad2adc507.png

I haven't been able to find a club badge; in fact from this image of the club shirt it seems as if they don't even have one.

DCK-Maidenbower-shirt.thumb.jpg.7b5a22032f1d154db6d85c9cdb8bfb70.jpg

Summary of the first season is coming shortly.

Edited by sourgrapes11
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DCK Maidenbower Season 1 2028/29

Preseason

Preseason was mostly about getting to understand the squad and where it needed improving. Some big players were lost, most notably star striker Jon Eyoma who moved to Doncaster in League 1 and ended up starting just 5 games all season. His departure cleared the way for the signing of Keymer and Hassocks deity Literally Messi, aka David Ashley, who famously hit 87 goals in 40 games in the 2023/24 season. The team began to take shape, and we were ready for Jamie Tabb's first season managing in semi-pro football.

729150937_Screenshot2019-04-2118_57.21(2).thumb.png.1adc1c2547c60ce2af3be7ea86d89e52.png

 

League

Having just won the SCFLD2 last year under AI management, DCK were expected to repeat the feat again and collect another league title. They didn't disappoint, finishing first with a massive 19 point gap to second-placed Horsham Baptists and Ambassadors, who you may recall from their bizarre obsession a few seasons back with signing as many K&H players they could get their hands on.

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Cups

Big things were expected of DCK in the cups this season, but they flattered to deceive. Expected to win 3/4 cups, they ended up empty handed, although the league win and subsequent promotion will certainly have softened that blow.

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Top Performer

Despite missing four months of the season through injury, David Ashley continued to justify his nickname with another outstanding season.

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Transfers

Lots of activity; with key players poached before a ball had even been kicked, manager Jamie Tabb turned to his former side Keymer and Hassocks to bolster his squad.

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Of this season's signings, 13/16 had played under Tabb before, and 8/16 came directly from K&H. They played a key role in securing promotion, ably abetted by squad players that Tabb inherited. The backline of

Sutton-Bell-Wheeler-Hopkinson is one that all fans of K&H will be very familiar with, and with former K&H goalkeeper Ian Lowndes behind them, signed by DCK before Tabb's arrival, they kept by far the best defensive record in the league.

The seemingly lower reputation of DCK compared to K&H made it more difficult for Tabb to bring in the players that he wanted this season, as did the highly restrictive wage limits. It appears to be far tougher to convince a player to sign for £50 a week than it is to convince them to play for free. Go figure.

 

Next Season

A better cup season would be lovely, but the main goal is to keep the squad solid and gain another promotion. The club is haemorrhaging cash at the moment; semi pro finance is a brutal change from making a small (~£30k) profit every year at K&H, so we may be in dire need of a takeover/bailout soon. 

 

Onwards and Upwards!

 

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Note: My computer froze up and I had to replay the second half of the 2028/29 season; we still won the league and failed to win any cups so I won't update the season review unless requested.

One thing I didn't include was how the B team, aka the DoF side of the DCK adventure got on in 2028/29. Mid Sussex D4 wasn't loaded but they did compete in the cups, winning two out of four.

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Next season Mid Sussex leagues will be loaded down to about D6 so I sould be able to see how they get on in the league next season (promotion, hopefully) under the careful hand of my AssMan, who due to staffing shortages currently manages my B team, u23s and u18s.

Edited by sourgrapes11
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On 21/04/2019 at 18:47, sourgrapes11 said:

DCK Maidenbower: An Introduction

After a little sleuthing, I have found out a little about DCK. They play at Maidenbower Park, in South East Crawley, just a few hundred metres from the M23.

1887070346_Screenshot2019-04-2118_15.35(2).thumb.png.65aa2c00f417425083d45448a5e48a85.png

Maidenbower Park is a community area with several football pitches. According to FM, Mid Sussex D7 side Crawley Panthers also play here.

841310771_Screenshot2019-04-2118_13.45(2).thumb.png.503d91676cae9c1e6f8b306ad2adc507.png

I haven't been able to find a club badge; in fact from this image of the club shirt it seems as if they don't even have one.

DCK-Maidenbower-shirt.thumb.jpg.7b5a22032f1d154db6d85c9cdb8bfb70.jpg

Summary of the first season is coming shortly.

The club used to be known as DCK Copthorne before changing their name to Maidenbower, this was their logo before changing their name.

1239978_1476474715956413_503801705996286

Edited by Dan BHTFC
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20 minutes ago, Dan BHTFC said:

The club used to be known as DCK Copthorne before changing their name to Maidenbower, he was their logo before changing their name.

1239978_1476474715956413_503801705996286

 

Cheers Dan - your knowledge of the lower leagues is remarkable as ever

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DCK Maidenbower 2029/30 Season Preview

At the start of the season, the reality of semi-pro finances really started to bite. DCK lost their first choice GK Ian Lowndes, who decided he'd rather sit on the bench at Derby. Unable to offer more than ~£150 a week in wages, hardly any potential replacements were even willing to open contract talks, and those that were tended to ask for at least £300 a week or more. 18 year old GK Ashley Rivers was eventually chosen as Lowendes' Replacement, but DCK have now gone from their GK being the best player on the pitch to the worst. The one consolation is that Rivers is young, and young GKs tend to grow relatively quickly.

Strengthening the first 11 is effectively out of the question, so it's just a case of making do with the squad available and hoping there aren't too many other departures. At least the current part-timers are (so far) willing to renew their contracts at the end of the year. Small blessings, eh?

Reasonable pre-season, had to laugh at the 0-13 result against Arsenal - their English/Vietnamese regen striker Pham Thanh Tuan bagging 10 goals.

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Keymer and Hassocks captain Rio 'Ferdy' Bryan-Edwards retired at the end of last season, so naturally DCK snapped him up immediately in a staff role. He's the new u18s manager, and being groomed to take over the B side in a few seasons.

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Going forwards DCK are involved in the FA Cup this season for the first time, which is very exciting. There are of course no expectations to get beyond the qualifying rounds but the buzz is definitely building. It will be a busy season, involved in 4 cups and with a 38 game league season to contend with; some decent cup runs could result in a 60+ game season! There's only one promotion spot available this season, evoking bad memories of the Mid Sussex Prem with K&H, and the SCFL Prem is the sticking point that snared Theodlard's K&H for several seasons before he gave up. We are the joint media favourites but I have to say I don't share their confidence.

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One question for Dan: Is there a limit to the promotions of the B side? Obviously in Spain the B sides can't play in the same division as the senior side; has this been coded into the L22 mod, is it part of the base game code that they can't be in the same league, or are there no limits to which division they can play in? I would swear I remember a senior and B side playing in the same Mid Sussex Division while at K&H, but my mind could have been playing tricks on me I guess.

 

Edited by sourgrapes11
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